A Survey of cocoa wet bean marketing in Papua New Guinea

Price is an important factor in determining farmers' decision making for resource allocation and resource management. A survey of cocoa wet bean marketing was conducted in four provinces of Papua New Guinea, namely East New Britain, East Sepik, Madang and Oro. One hundred and sixty-seven farmers were interviewed.Farmers were asked about certain aspects of wet bean marketing, including price, adequacy of small village fermentaries and dealers. The study revealed that farmers in East New Britain njoyed a higher price for their wet bean compared with farmers in the other three provinces. There was more competition in ENB because of the large number of dealers. There were only a few dealers in the other provinces and on Karkar Island there were only two. The price received there was also lower than in the other areas